


Rise of the Dead

by BinaryCoding



Category: Original Work
Genre: First work - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-04-16 08:56:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 6,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4619319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BinaryCoding/pseuds/BinaryCoding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A zombie fic. Also first fic, and completely unrelated to the Walking Dead. Rated T for violence and cursing, may change later or if it doesn't fit. Please rate/review, also keep in mind only some of these chapters are mine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. everything goes very badly very quickly

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this is my first work I'm going to post, so we'll see how this goes. This chapter is actually written by me, as it's a co-author thing with people who may or may not have AO3 accounts. I'll upload a chapter a day and then see what will happen, since we're stuck for the moment.

The disadvantages of being a night owl include staying up until 3 and snapping at people for saying you shouldn’t sleep that late. Of course, being a teenager, I have more problems than most would. School, summer homework, regular homework, projects… and apparently a zombie apocalypse.

It happened to fall on Saturday, rather late into the afternoon. I was in the middle of Mass, obviously not paying attention to the priest’s sermons. Instead I was tapping my fingers a bit incessantly on my legs, thinking about a melody to a song consistently stuck in my head time and time again. The priest was continuing onwards, we were standing now. I wasn’t really keeping track of that. I was keeping my eyes on my fingers dancing on the wood of the pew in front of me, lightly tapping on imaginary piano keys. The first time I’ve been to Mass in two years.

“... Let us offer each other the sign of peace,” the priest boomed. People turned to each other, shaking hands. I was neither willing nor ready to do so, and I was most certainly not ready for a spurt of blood to erupt from someone in the front row.

It occurred to me that no sane human being should ever rip someone’s throat out. The singular man weakly gurgled as the other person ripped into them. The same thing began to sprout up again and again, fountains of blood painting the varnished wood and slightly-off-color carpet.

“Holy shit!” For being a not-so-Catholic, I still feel a lot more atheist than I should be. My faith could wait for later though. People were eating other people. Cannibalism is always a reason to start running. Even the priest, an 50-something man with a balding head, bolted for the sacristy and the emergency exit beyond.

Everyone bolted for any visible doors, shoving and pushing each other out of the way. Staggering not-people shambled through the aisles, catching anyone stupid enough to reason to them. I bolted for a place I’d know well, the hallway back through the choir’s section leading to the actual parish building. My car was close to the entrance, if I could manage sprinting through hallways potentially filled with more zombies and out through the entrance. I broke some glass, pulling a fire extinguisher out from the wall. If I was going to get attacked, I might as well have something to counter that and make sure I can live a little bit longer.

It was a good idea bringing the fire extinguisher, because a person from the receptionist’s desk (the most likely location it could have come from) staggered out, a huge chunk of their neck scratched out. What the fuck.

“What the fuck!” I yelled, slamming the fire extinguisher into their head with a crunch. The zombie goes down, the huge dent in their head underlied with bone shards and bleeding arteries. Then they start crawling and I scream, spinning the extinguisher on a whim and slamming it into the corpse’s head. It stops moving. I think.

I dash the rest of the way, dropping the extinguisher back at the probably-still-alive corpse, and then clicking my car’s locks open. The sleek black Dodge Stealth pulls back, and I look back, watching for any more walking corpses. It’s a fast car, but it’s not sturdy, so any strong impact would probably stop the car. Which, sadly, included running over zombies.

“Alright, you’re going to make it, just don’t mind the walking corpses, try not to run any over…” I mumble to myself, making various gestures with one hand and driving with the other. I do this a lot. Sometimes people think I’m crazy for mumbling statements to myself but most of the time they ignore it.

A corpse shows up on the road and I swerve into the other lane, around the monster, and continue. My house should be close. There’s a shotgun and a machete in there, and hopefully my father and mother haven’t taken both of them to go defend my brother, who’s still in high school. Some sort of meeting, I think, to talk about new changes to the school. I swerve, nearly hitting a streetlight, probably hitting the upper 60s in terms of miles per hour. I manage to slow it down slightly as I turn through the neighborhood. Rain begins to drip down, thunder echoing above. I turn into my driveway, the garage door pulling open with a click of a button on a remote I have pushed into an air conditioning slot.

I open the door, running slightly through the house and down into the basement. The shotgun is missing, as well as the machete.

“Fuck.” I slam the wall with a clenched fist. “Great! Good job!”

Never mind the fact that I’m talking to an empty house.

There’s a hastily written note that basically says I’m on my own, meet at the school because it’s safer, and don’t open the door. They must have thought my brother would need more protection, or that they would be protected in the school.  
Either way, I’m on my own.

I scowl, taking a few kitchen knives from the dish holder. Maybe I can make a spear out of these. I also empty my school backpack, shoving a few knives into the frontmost pocket. The red and black backpack bounces as I check around. It probably won’t be long before more zombies show up. It’s probably zombies. Fuck the apocalypse.

I take the roll of black duct tape from its usual spot in the cupboard and tape a few rulers together, along with a knife. The end result is slightly crooked, but is able to kill a zombie meandering towards me. The knife sinks into the head, and I kick the body to get the tip of the spear and part of the skull out. I get into my Dodge, ignore the bloody body next to the car, and start driving.

Fuck my life.

 


	2. A Conpletely Normal Day at the Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DR friend's turn. The cursing is strong in this fic

The sun shines down from the cloudless sky on a bright and cheery Saturday morning. The wind blows through the air, the cool breeze cooling me down from the hot spring day.

Oh, and there’s a dead body.

"Wait what?" I think. I glance back and see a slumped body with a crowd surrounding it. I quickly edge closer before a woman crying that she’s a doctor kneels down and presses her ear to his chest. The slumped body suddenly moves and grabs the doctor, his teeth piercing into her neck. Screams of terror emanate from onlookers who quickly flee as the lady doctor screams in agony.

“Well...shit.” I mutter before It take off. The one day I decide to go for a walk and this shit happens. Honestly, this is why I refrain from ever leaving my house. The mob that runs next to me is assaulted as more of these “zombie-esque” creatures attack. One launches and lands on top of me.

I struggle as I attempt to hold it back as it tries to eat my fucking face off. “SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!” I shout. To my fortune, some lady runs over me and her high heels stab the beast in the back of the head, killing it. Unfortunately its blood sprays all over my shirt.

“Well fuck you too!” I growl as I crawl out from underneath the corpse. I resume my fleeing before something smacks me.

A elderly man smacks me with his cane as he screams. “Kill the zombie!”

“I’m fucking ali-” I get smacked again.

“Stop-” Smack.

“I said-” Smack.

“STOP MOTHERFU-” Smack.

I finally dodge the cane as a zombie 5 year old girl lands on the old guy’s head and devours him.

“You don’t see that everyday” I think to myself before I resume my fleeing. “Alright think. You came to the park walking, so no car, you’re covered in blood so everyone thinks I’m a fuckin’ zombie…”

“I’m so fucked!” I scream. I see someone get dragged out of their Mercedes-Benz by a zombie as they attempt to close the door. I run past them as they’re devoured and enter the car, locking all the doors. The keys are in the ignition.

“Yes.” I sigh as I drive off. I cringe as the car makes weird noises as I run over hordes of zombies. The wheels catch on a fallen body as my car actually flips over. As I become airborne I have one thought.

“Shit.”

The car crashes down onto the ground. Sparks fly and everything goes dark.


	3. Thanks, Mom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which hospital supply gathering and a goal comes to mind. vietnamese friend 1's chap.

Thank you, Mom. Thank you for telling me to volunteer at the hospital because now I’m surrounded by goddamn zombies.

Everyone knows the worst place to be during a zombie apocalypse would be the hospital because there’s sick people everywhere. I frantically gather as many medical supplies as I can. Stopping and reading the labels would be a good idea, but there’s absolutely no time for that. Just need lots of morphine, I thought. Next to the medicine cabinet were adhesive bandages and antiseptic wipes. I stuffed those into my backpack, too.

Just as I was zipping up my pack, a zombie bursts through the door. Its blank, decaying eyes locked on me. I mentally face-palm myself. In my hurry to gather supplies, I didn’t scan the room to make sure I had a weapon in hand.

A fire extinguisher catches my eye. The only problem is that it’s hanging next to the door; next to the thing that’s trying to kill me. All I have to do is try not to get scratched, bitten, or killed. A tough feat to accomplish since I have no idea what I’m doing. Considering the fact that I don’t want to die, I desperately run towards the IV pole in the corner of the room, grab it, and turn just in time to swing it. It’s slightly heavy, but I guess it’ll do.

I rush out of the room, trying my best to avoid both people and zombies. There’s two thoughts running through my mind. My family for one and my katanas. They weren’t really mine per se, but if I was going to survive in an apocalyptic world, I was going to need those katanas. My family owns three.

I only need one of those and it’ll increase my chance of survival.


	4. A Whole New Fucking World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i can show you the world~  
> but seriously  
> lots of cursing in this one.

It was just another Saturday afternoon so I was at home playing videogames. Unfortunately I was playing a zombie game which disguised the sound of an actual zombie apocalypse.

I didn't notice what was going on until my door flew flew off its hinges and two people fell into my apartment. The one on top just happened to be a zombie who was tearing a poor woman's neck out.

“Holy shit!” I yelled, dropping my controler. I pulled open my shades and peered out the window. The streets were chaos, with zombies eating people left and right. The zombie in my apartment seemed to be preoccupied so I ran into my bedroom and slammed the door closed. I slid a backpack out from under my bed and started filling it with clothes as fast as I could. Once it was halfway full I opened my door a crack and peered outside.

The zombie was nowhere to be seen leaving a dead old lady on my floor. I ran over to my kitchen area and stuffed food into my backpack. Two water bottles were sitting on my counter so I filled those up and put them in the backpack too. The screams from the hallway had died down although I could still hear the chaos outside. There were various dead bodies littered around but no visible zombies.

As quietly as possible I moved over to the stairs which were at the end of the hallway. Each body I passed I passed had been torn into by the zombies in one way or another. Now there was just one more body between me and the door.

It was face down and covered the hallways floor. I carefully stepped over the body and sighed in relief when it didn't get up. Without looking back I pushed the door open.

Unfortunately it let out a loud creaking sound that prompted a growl from behind me. The man I had just stepped over was now beginning to crawl towards me and moan loud enough to attract more zombies.

I turned to the stairs and sprinted down them three steps at a time. By the time I reached the parking lot I was out of breath and had to take a second to compose myself. Then my brain started to realize that all those torn apart bodies and dead people were real.

This wasn't a TV show or some video game. I thought about all the blood and guts lying on the floor of my apartment 13 floors up. Now because I had a weak stomach these thoughts didn't do me much good.

A minute later I entered the parking lot having just emptied my stomach on the stairs. I had parked fairly close to the door so I quickly found my car. Unfortunately there were two zombies devouring a person right next to the driver side door. "Fuck this," I said in my head as I sprinted out of the parking garage leaving my car for the zombies.

What the fuck was I going to do now?!


	5. A Normal Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> v short, compensation for no upload on thursday. i was not doing ok. now it's better.  
> this is lit. four chaps tho, and it's not mine .-.

The day is sunny the birds are chirping... and I’m bored out of my mind! My phone has no service for some reason and my whole neighborhood is empty. I normally wouldn’t be riding my bike around but desperate times comes for desperate measures.

Why isn’t anybody around here I feel like I’m the last person on earth right now. Seriously, where is everybody?

“AHHHH RUN! RUN! RUN! THEY ARE COMING!” a lady behind me shrieked. Who the heck are coming? I turn to see a slow moving zombie coming in my direction. Oh my god...Zombies are real? The zombie caught up to the scared lady, grabbed her hair and is just hurting her and biting her. I have to get out of here.

Where do I go? Oh god! Is there any kind of safe place to go to? Thats it! I will just go home, I should be able to stay in there long enough.  

 

 


	6. mr. unprepared-at-life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which one protag meets another, a friend is found, the heartless factor hits more than enough levels, and the Corpse Party hanging stalls come back in a different way. maybe. it's vaguely like that scene.

Driving at 70 miles an hour is both dangerous and strangely exhilarating. Never mind the zombies on the road that give the car a passing glance as I go, although swerving around a group is always hard. I have to stop several times to watch the bodies along the road. There was one particular scene that caught my eye though.

I was driving through a park with a few zombies shambling about. Most of them had wandered off already, probably drawn in by a few survivors. If anyone was still alive. A little ways outside there was a wreck of a Mercedes-Benz, with someone trapped in it. Or maybe they were a zombie, because they were covered in blood. Either way I could probably handle it. I pulled up to the car, looking around before approaching the car.

"Um... Hello?" I asked, bending down towards the windshield and waving a hand a safe distance away from his head. "Are you alive?"

He groaned, but refused to, or couldn't, say anything else. I have no way of knowing he's alive until I touch him. Oh boy.

"... Hm... I'm gonna get you out from the car, alright? Say something if you can hear me," I ordered. The Asian guy nodded with a noise. Close enough.

I circled around the car. There was a zombie near the back that I put down with a thrust to the head, but there was strangely nothing else. That's good, and I'm not going to question that, so now the problem is getting this guy out from the car. I tapped the window and the teenager, still sort-of unconscious, responded with a faint nod again. So maybe he's not a zombie? I climbed through the torn-off passenger's doorway, unbuckling his seatbelt. It flew back into his arm, prompting him to groan and keep his eyes open.

"Who...?" He turned his head towards the windshield. "Shouldn't I be dead?"

"Well obviously you survived this," I muttered just as gravity kicked in and he dropped to the roof. The upside-down car is not really helping the situation here. "Come on, let's get out of here, I don't know if any of those zombies out there got attracted yet."

He clambered out with my help, staggering to my car. "Think you broke anything?" I asked.

“No, don’t think so…” he muttered. “Who are you anyways?”

“A survivor. Drove past, thought you might have been a zombie, but then look at you now. You’re alive.” I turned on the dashboard. “And we’re out of gas. Fuck.”

He walked back around to the driver’s seat, looking at the dashboard. The car is somehow still running, but he turned it off. “There’s a lot of gas in this car. We could siphon it.”

“Alright, I guess.” I pulled my spear from the backseat. “If you want to come, go ahead. I’m going to see if I can get anything from these houses. You should stay back here. You’re sort of injured.”

He looked kind of distraught at the prospect. “Wait, you’re going to break into peoples’ homes?!”

“Well, yeah, ‘cause it’s the apocalypse and they probably won’t be home,” I reasoned. “And if they are, they're most likely zombies, so it’s okay.”

“What if they aren't zombies?”

“I move to the next house,” I said, walking towards the nearest house. “Try not to die!” I yelled back. I didn't stick around to hear his reply.

 

The houses are dark, dismal rows of buildings with potential loot in them. “Yep, this is gonna be fun,” I remarked, “Let’s see if there’s any zombies behind Door 1!” I readied my spear, carefully opening the door.

Inside, the house is empty. Toys are strewn around the floor, colorful LEGO bricks scattered on carpet. Maybe a family? Most likely all out for the day. I walked carefully around, confiscating the majority of the knives in the kitchen. A cleaver might be good for the guy I just rescued. I checked the basement and bedrooms, stocking a few canned foods and a can opener from the pantry while I search.

The father bought a pistol for self-defense, apparently. There’s a few clips in the safe, along with a sum of money. I took both, slipping the pistol into my backpack. Then I moved to the next house.

There’s two hanging bodies twitching in the living room. A couple that probably couldn’t take it. There’s a dead body in the backyard. That must be why. Obviously didn’t save these two from the zombies, apparently. The two bodies try to reach out to me but I ducked under their arms and rolled into the kitchen. More knives for us!

A loud thump made me jump from the impact. A low groan echoes through the house before the male zombie starts crawling for me. I screamed and thrust out with the spear several times. The knife managed to pull out an eye and most of the tissue behind it, saving me from having to try to aim for it further.

“Alright… tubes,” I looked around. “There should be vacuum cleaner tubes around here.”

I managed to extract the tube without the suction part from the vacuum by twisting it out of the socket. The garage has a customized sports car, and a few gasoline cans, all empty. I pulled one of those off from the shelves before returning to the living room. For good measure I speared the other one through the head, leaving the spear there. I can always make another one later.

When I returned there were two more decapitated corpses lying nearby. The boy is hesitantly jabbing at another one with a discarded piece of metal from a car. I walked over, popping the fuel can open on my car as the boy hops down from the roof of my car.

“Got anything?” he asked.

I pulled out the cleaver and the pistol. “Here, take both of them. I’ve got knives for days.”

He took them from the spot on the roof. “Alright, now who’s going to siphon gas?”

He walked over, taking the tube and gasoline can from me. “I’ll do it. I sort of caused you to stop and kill zombies for me.”

“Alright,” I paused, watching him siphon gas out of the Mercedes-Benz. “Well, we can't just skirt around the issue. What’s your name?”

“Kevin. You?” he said in between spurts of gasoline.

“Celeste,” I said, stabbing a zombie lurching for my Dodge Stealth with a knife. “Man, you’re a bit under-prepared, aren’t you?”

“That’s a fricking understatement,” Kevin pulled the can towards the Dodge. “Anyways, did you get a pack or something?”

“No,” I remarked. “We should get out of here. There’s isn’t much, and we should get to a place we can hole down into for the night.” Kevin nods and gets in the passenger seat.

I continue to drive.


	7. Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the other two protags meet, a family gets murdered, and people are traumatized

The chaos on the streets had died down, I have been making my way out of the city trying to avoid all zombies.

“Help!” Someone yelled from my left.

A man was running away from a zombie and fumbling for something in his bag. I watched him pull out a gun right. He swung the gun around so he could shoot the zombie following him right as another zombie slammed into him. The gun flew out of his hands and both zombies started tearing his face off. Fortunately for me the gun slid onto the sidewalk in front of me. I picked up the gun and recognized it as a .44 AutoMag pistol. I tucked the gun behind my shirt and moved past the man's corpse.

After a couple more blocks I entered a residential district that looked mostly deserted. Most of the houses looked empty like their residents had been eaten or fled. The door on a house burst open and a short Asian girl wielding two swords ran out. She was being chased by three zombies. The girl had a terrified expression on her face and for some reason she didn't stop to kill the zombies. She turned and ran towards me screaming something I couldn't make out. After a few seconds I pulled out my gun and tried to shoot one of the zombies. My bullet flew way right of the zombies and broke another house's window. This time I focused on aiming and hit one of the zombies in the side of the head. After five more shots all three zombies were done. The girl finally reached me and began to sob.

"That was my family.” She managed to say.

“I’m so sorry.” I offered trying to console this stranger. “They would have killed you.”

After a minute the girl began to calm down and compose herself. “My name’s Thao,” she said. “What’s yours?”

“Ray.”

“Nice to meet you Ray. Where are you headed?”

“Out of town.”

“I was going to head over to Costco to gather some supplies, why don't you come with me and then we can head out of town?” Thao offered.

“Why not.” I replied.

The Costco was not far from the houses so it only took us a couple of minutes to walk there. The parking lot looked full and a few zombies wandered around in front of the warehouse.

“Looks like we have some work ahead of us.”

“I guess no one made it out of there alive.”

Thao dealt with the zombies at the entrance as I scouted out the place. No other zombies were visible but I knew there were more in there. The food section was relatively close to the door so we made it there without encountering any more zombies. Soon our backpacks were filled to the brim with all sorts of non-perishable food. We were just zipping up our backpacks when we heard a voice from behind us.

“Who are you two?” the person said.

I slowly turned around to see a guy pointing a gun at my face.


	8. Healer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> very quick chap about fixing a certain someone's wounds.

I stood there, transfixed on the gun aimed at Ray. Two Asians around our age stood in front of us. “Who are you two?” the boy repeated, the gun shaking in his hand. His face displayed cuts and scratches; clammy skin shone under the store light.

I slowly rose my hands in surrender. “Uhm, I think we’re the last of your worries. Are you forgetting there are zombies around?”

“He’s scratched.” Ray observed, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You should be the one to have a gun aimed at your head.”

“Oh, him? Car crash.” The girl explained vaguely. Her partner stumbled, lowering his gun. The Asian girl caught him, preventing him from falling over completely.

“That’s a convincing story,” Ray snapped.

“I can help,” I told them before Ray could make the situation any worse. “I have some medicine to help treat your wounds. If, you know, you don’t kill us.”

Ray threw his hands up in frustration. “He’s going to become a zombie and he aimed his gun at us. Why are you helping them?”

“He aimed his gun at you, Ray,” I corrected. “Those aren’t scratches from a person. They’re too clean. We’re not going to have to worry about him becoming a zombie. What we should be worried about is the fact that we’re in a store with actual zombies.”

I dug through my backpack, searching for the emergency kit I obtained in the hospital. Pulling out an antiseptic pad and some bandages, I proceeded to quickly treat the injured guy.


	9. Why You Go to Sam's Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is just a wonderful chapter  
> just  
> absolutely amazing

“Thanks...uh?” I ask as my wounds are treated.

“Thao.” the girl responds.

“So…” Celeste mutters as she, along with the other guy named Ray, crouch besides us as we hide in an aisle as the noise we caused attracted a few of the undead our way.

“The fuck do we do now?” Ray whispers.

“Well our highest priority should be to get out of this place, but unfortunately, there aren’t many other establishments nearby.” I explain, “Also, it’s dark outside which means if we leave in Celeste’s car, the headlights will attract zombies.”

“Wait...rewind…” Thao interrupts, turning to Celeste, “You have a car?”

“Fuckin’ shit Kevin don’t give away our advantage!” Celeste snaps.

“Regardless...if we leave we’ll ultimately attract hordes of those creatures and it’ll probably destroy the car, our one advantage in this place.” I continue, “But if we have to stay here...then we have to make some sort of shelter.”

“How?” Ray retorts, “There’s a fuckin’ mass of zombies in the back of this place.”

“Well if we keep quiet enough we should be able to not attract them.” Thao states as she shifts, the plethora of supplies in her pack clinking loudly. Celeste raises a brow. “And how exactly are we supposed to be quiet when you’re a fuckin’ siren?”

“It’s not like we can ditch this stuff.” Ray responds.

“Don’t you have a pack full of knives, Celeste?” I ask, “They’ll probably clink. And we need somebody to grab maybe one or two of those tents in Aisle 13 so we have some semblance of shelter.”

“Well, shouldn’t you go?” Thao asks me, “You have no pack.” In response, I point to the blatant bandages on my body.

Celeste rolls her eyes as she hands me her pack. “Whatever, I’ll be back.”

Celeste sneaks away as Ray, Thao, and I stay behind. I hear a groan as I see two zombies stumble into our aisle.

“Shit.” Ray mumbles.

We attempt to crawl to the adjacent aisle only for the packs to clink rather loudly as the zombies begin staggering towards us, the source of the noise. Ray curses again as we loudly crawl into the next aisle followed by the two zombies. Thao grimaces as she readies her katana, Ray brandishes his gun before quickly realizing how bad of an idea that is and decides to leave it to Thao. I open Celeste’s pack and hand him a knife before readying my sharp metal piece from the Mercedes-Benz and the butcher knife.

As the first zombie enters the aisle, Thao slams her sword into its skull. It whines and groans before falling limp. The next one appears as Thao stabs at it with her other katana. It misses its target slightly as the zombie suddenly moves to the side slightly as the katana slices part of his head off, not damaging the brain enough to actually cause enough damage. Thao pulls at her other katana stuck in the first zombie but it’s stuck in its skull. Her third katana is strapped onto her hip, both of her hands occupied as her second katana ends up also stuck in the zombies head. The zombie latches onto her before Ray chucks his knife at its exposed brain. It growls before collapsing on top of Thao, its brain fluids leaking onto her. Thao bites back an involuntary scream of disgust.

Unfortunately, collapsing onto her back is a very very bad thing as she lands on top of her pack resulting in a very loud clang.

“Oh shit.”

The errant zombies that were stumbling around blindly suddenly all turn in our direction.

“Shit shit shit shit,” I think. Ray pulls Thao out from under the zombie and helps her quickly retrieve her katanas.

“Fuck crawling.” Ray growls. The three of us make a break for it as the zombies quickly begin surrounding our aisle.

“We’re surrounded!” Thao cries.

I look up. “Climb!” I call as I grab onto the shelf and begin climbing.

Ray and Thao ensue climbing frantically as we no longer care that our packs clink and clank dangerously loudly. With a higher vantage point I scour the area for Celeste, being on the ground is dangerous now. Especially since more zombies are coming from the back.

“What the fuck do we do now?” Ray asks. I peer at the items on the shelves. Dishwashing soap and other cleaning supplies. Seems legit. Ray readies his gun and fires a shot into the mass of zombies.

Thao grabs his arm. “Are you crazy?”

“Do you have a better idea?” Ray retorts. I grab a box full of dishwashing soap, ripping it open and taking out a container. I chuck it into the crowd as the force of it smashes into a zombie. Not killing it but good enough to keep it down. Ray and Thao ensue the same idea as literal boxes or containers of all types of soap crash into the ground, some breaking, the liquid causing some of the zombies to slip.

“Where the fuck is Celeste?” Ray groans.

“She’s weaponless!” I realize. We hear a voice.

“FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!” Celeste dashes along the ground, carting a large compressed tent along with other camping supplies. She’s pushing a shopping cart as it’s all too much for one person to carry. She’s pursued by a mass of zombies, probably attracted by the noise we made. She’s heading straight into our horde though.

“Cover her.” I call as I ready my gun along with another tub of dishwashing soap. Ray fires into the mass of zombies as Thao continues chucking tubs of soap at them. I fire too as Celeste dashes into our mob, her cart crashing into the mob. She looks up and sees us and grabs onto the shelf across from us and begins climbing. Any zombie close enough to her is quickly shot or hit by a tub of soap. One grabs her foot and I fire.

Click.

“Are you fucking serious.” I mutter as I chuck my gun at the zombie. It smacks into the zombie’s head, loosening its grip enough that Celeste can pull away and climb out of reach.

She sighs in relief before calling over to us. “Hey fuckers! What the fuck did you do?”

I peer at the abandoned shopping cart in the mass of zombies.

Ray voices my thoughts, “How the fuck are we supposed to use this stuff if it’s down there?”

Celeste realizes something. “Holy fuck!” she shouts, “I got a can of gasoline. Shoot it and it’ll blow!”

“So will the rest of the fucking supplies.” Ray shouts back.

Celeste growls, “Do you wanna fucking live or not?” Ray throws his hands in the air before he fires a bullet into the can of gasoline.

There’s a bright explosion that nearly knocks the four of us off the shelves. As the smoke clears we see the ruined cart along with the charred corpses of the zombies. Celeste cheers.

Creak.

I blink as I peer at the state of the shelves. Due to their proximity to the explosion, they’re visibly ruined as well.

Groan.

Thao realizes what I realize. “The shelves are collapsing!”

“Oh shit!” Ray and Celeste scream simultaneously.

Crash.

The shelves collapse as the four of us collapse into the mass of burned corpses.

Celeste is the first on her feet. “Oh fuck. The horde is coming.” The massive horde of zombies in the back stumbles towards us. Celeste grabs my thrown gun as Thao gives her one of the katanas.

The four of us share a glance.

“Car?” I ask.

“Car.” Celeste nods.

The four of us bolt. We burst into the parking lot. A parking lot a lot more zombie-filled due to the commotion.

“Shit! Run!” I scream. The four of us maneuver our way around the least zombies, Ray firing into any that get close enough to us and Thao and Celeste slashing any with katanas as I bury my butcher knife into a zombie's errant arm, cutting it off.

Thao reaches the car first. She pulls at the door. “It’s locked!” she screams.

Celeste curses. “Kevin! The keys!”

“Are you fucking kidding me!?” Ray snarls. I throw the pack at her as she retrieves her keys. The car unlocks and we bolt in, quickly locking it after us. Running over a few of the undead, we zoom out of the parking lot.

“Holy shit.” Ray mutters.

Celeste can only nod silently in consensus.


	10. why night driving is bad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> extremely small chapter that does not make up for last week (i was busy) and this week (missed a day)

Night driving is much more stressful than actually day driving. Worse is when you have to take shifts to get shut-eye and there are zombies everywhere. I keep my eye on the road for about four hours and when it ends, the clock reads 11:36 PM. “Alright… who to wake up. Or more, who do I trust with my car?” I pulled over, looking back. They're all asleep. “Basically... none of them. More driving.” I glance up and around before starting the car back onto the long long road ahead.

 

“The hell have you been doing?” Ray asks. The car is pulled over at the borders of a smaller town. Thao and Kevin stretch in the backseat and passenger seat respectively. The sun is way too bright.

“Here… um… I’m just gonna… godfuck… goodnight…” I collapse in the backseat just as Thao gets up.

Yep, good times.


	11. Small Town Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> that's not the original chapter name but fuck it  
> in which the last protag is met and killing zombies becomes easier

Thao stopped the car before we reached the town so we could scout it out. From what we could see it was very small and as a result had very few zombies. We could make out four or five zombies walking around the main street. Thao got back behind the wheel and drove us into the town.

Every time we came up on a zombie Thao would stop and one of would have to get out of the car and kill it. It wa a time consuming process but relatively safe. We stopped again at gas station in the center of the town.

“We should split up. If each of us goes down one of these roads and gathers supplies we can search the whole town quickly.” Everyone mumbled "OK" and took off in a different direction.

Celeste was still wiped out so she stayed with the car and pumped gas. I only encountered two zombies while going down my street. They were both killed with a knife that I was becoming more comfortable using. If you can sneak up on a zombie all you have to do is stab it in the head to kill it.

In a convenience store I found a baseball bat and some more food. The bat required more of an effort zombie-killing-wise but it had a longer range, making it safer. Most of the other stores on the street just had souvenirs and other useless crap. The only other useful store was on the very end of the street. The store was called Impact Guns. I noticed that the door had been broken off, leaving the store wide open. When I entered, two zombies staggered towards me at the same time. I swung my bat at one's head and knocked it backwards but the other zombie knocked me to the ground. It fell on top of me and tried to bite my shoulder. I pushed its head away and then rolled it off of me. My baseball bat had rolled down the store so I ran over and grabbed it. I quickly smashed in both zombies’ heads and sighed in relief. The store had been mostly picked over but there were still some guns left. I grabbed two more pistols and 4 boxes of .44 ammo. There was also a rifle but no ammo for it. I grabbed it in the hopes that we could find ammo for it at a later date. All the stores on my street have been looted so I started to head back to the center of town.

I was about halfway back when I heard a gunshot one street over. Kevin was the only person with a gun so he must fired it. I sprinted towards the shot as fast as I could but by the time I saw Kevin he was surrounded by 9 or 10 zombies. He fired his gun again, killing another zombie, and then ran out of bullets.

“Fuck!” I said under my breath as I pulled out one of my pistols. Between my gun and Kevin's knife we were able to kill the crowd of zombies. “

Thanks.” Kevin said. “One snuck up on me so I had to shoot it, then I got surrounded.”

“Let's get back to the car before any more zombies come this way.” We made it back to the car by running past any more zombies we saw. Thao and Celeste were in the car when we reached it.

“Get in idiots!” Celeste yelled. Before we could close our doors Thao took off heading straight out of town. Once clear of the town we all explained what we had found. I gave a pistol to Thao and Celeste and a box of ammo to everyone. Thao had found more duct tape and Kevin had found a tent. After Thao got tired I took my turn driving. We didn't know where we were going so I just followed the main road. Everything was quiet until I slammed on the braked and startled everyone.

Lying on the road in front of us was a girl about our age with a piece of metal sticking out of her leg.


End file.
